


Everything is different now

by enid_salt



Series: MCU character studies/meta [2]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain Marvel (2019) Spoilers, Character Study, Gen, Infinity War spoilers, Nick Fury Meta, im also always gonna believe in jasper sitwell so jot that down, im always gonna be here for this good man and his chosen family of superheroines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-15 04:29:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18066608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enid_salt/pseuds/enid_salt
Summary: Nicholas J. Fury knows things.Lies about things.And most importantly, sees all.





	Everything is different now

**Author's Note:**

> Clap if you've been emotionally compromised!!
> 
> *clap, clap, clap*
> 
> Also, I'm not taking any chances as far as spoilers go - if you haven't seen Infinity War, its post credits scenes, or Captain Marvel (2019) and its post credits scenes, back out of this page.

It doesn't really change anything which - considering the circumstances - is the least weird thing about the whole situation. 

The eyepatch is a bit of a transition but hey, most people dig scars. 

Fury types a bit slower. More deliberate, he would say. He watches more carefully. Notes things he wouldn't have before. Idiosyncrasies and tells and details. Puts together failsafe after backup plan after alternate route. The Spy, with cards flush against his chest and pager in his back pocket. 

This is new but this is normal. He's Fury. Always has been, always will be. 

\-- 

So Clint Barton is not the dumb fucking hick he was written off as in his file. He is also much more than a marksman in a sniper nest which he was happy enough to settle into among his class. 

This makes him valuable to Fury. It does not excuse the hell of a clusterfuck of paperwork and protocol to keep Laura (and kids!) plus the farm off the map and out of the line of fire. 

Barton with his word alone, promises he'll make it up to him. 

Dragging one of the covert ops world’s deadliest assassins into a safehouse, sans weapon, against his orders . . . was not what Fury had in mind. 

But he gives them the benefit of the doubt. Doesn't even bring more than a handgun into the cabin to debrief them. 

Barton knows better than to try and explain himself more than give a full, accounted for play by play. 

Natalia Alianova Romanova however. 

“What's your aim here?” 

She looks at Fury, then at Barton, then back up at the ceiling. 

“Pretty rusty, considering there's a hole in my shoulder instead of your sniper.” 

Then the deadly Black Widow of the Red Room giggles, ending it with a snort. 

It's jarring, how easily he is reminded of Carol in that brief moment. 

_Goddammit,_ he thinks, _I might just have to let Barton keep her._

\-- 

Maria Hill is his own doing, in the end. 

She’s a great recruit - sharp, smart, doesn’t trust anyone; down to Fury and Coulson. 

He lets her handle the day to day mundane stuff and asks for her opinion when he needs, pardon the pun, a fresh set of eyes on something. 

He doesn’t ask questions when she puts in for time off and she doesn’t offer anything more than signed forms. It’s the exact brand of personal privacy he’s come to expect. He had burned through quite a few second in commands before her. Phil had grown out of the role once he got the chance to get out on the field himself and the others after never quite got past the invisible walls that surrounded Fury. They all needed something he couldn’t give them: a word, a minute, the J in Nicholas J. Fury. 

Hill needed none of it. Give her a time, a place, and the objective and she had everything she needed. 

Pleasantly surprised, he kept himself in check and reminded himself not to expect her to stick around. 

She does though. 

Through a lot of things he wouldn’t have blamed her for. The rebirth and final death of Project Pegasus, New York, D.C., Sokovia. 

The world and its place in the universe shifts and mutates every time as they’re all constantly reminded paradoxically of their reaching impact from an insignificant speck in the wide expanse of the universe. 

But they move forward: Fury and Hill, a S.H.I.E.L.D. for the planet against every threat imaginable and a few they never could have dreamed of. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he’s noted the parallel. Carol and her Maria. Nick and his. Running until their feet don’t quite reach the ground. Almost like flying. 

Until they can’t run anymore. The minute Maria Hill disappears into the wind in a cloud of dust, he knows. 

This is the exact emergency he knew would come and hoped he would never live to see. 

He reaches for the pager and even as he curses the wind blowing him away, prays the galaxies between them will allow the message through. 

\--

The rest of his sins: Alexander Pierce, Jasper Sitwell, John Garrett, Ava Starr are scars left behind from his mistakes both before and after. 

He does penance the best way he knows how: making sure it doesn’t happen again. 

The Avengers Initiative. 

Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye. A god of Thunder named Thor. 

Phillip J. Coulson. 

Melinda May. 

Sokovia. 

As the list goes on and the lists of missteps blurs and overlaps with the things he got right, Fury knows there’s much more to it than just his hands and whatever blood and dirt they’ve been bathed in. 

He knows - has known since 1995 - that he’s part of something so much bigger than the world of secrets and lies he was born into. 

He just wants to have made a difference in the world. He wants to have, in the end, tipped those scales toward the side of good versus the bad. 

\--

Nick Fury sits at his desk as the new director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and takes it in. 

It’s the same office he had before - the Triskelion is not yet ready so he’s making do with most stuff in boxes or filed away in bunkers until the new building is ready. He hasn’t dared moved Goose’s bed yet. The little corner the Flerken has established is blissfully untouched among the chaos of evolution. 

A new year, decade, century, millenium stretches out before him with the world and it’s security in his care. 

Same and different, as it always seems to be. 

The mail is dropped off and he sets aside most of it for a later review until he gets to a letter from Louisiana. 

Monica Rambeau wrote him a letter asking if he’d be so kind as to allow her to use him a reference. 

The kid, the one Carol Danvers called Lieutenant Trouble, is applying to several aerospace engineering programs; including one at M.I.T. considered to be the fast track to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s academy for technology. 

She doesn’t exactly mention that childhood fantasy of meeting Carol halfway out in the cosmos. She makes a joke about Talos’s family leaving a few things behind she’s like to return. It’s as close to talking about that mission as he’s come in a while. 

Her brief paraphrasing of the last half-decade doesn’t take up much space on the page - her mom is good, she’s been working hard at this goal since then, and she’s always been very curious how Goose is doing. She tells Fury to give the Flerken an extra treat from her as a greeting. 

Her plea isn’t like most. There’s not a list of awards or accomplishments meant to polish her application included as a humble brag. 

She includes a few sketches of aircrafts and spacecrafts she’s designed. Including a startling good protype of a variant of the modded vessel her mother used to save him, Skrulls, and the Tesseract from a Kree soldier named Minn-Erva. 

She calls it the Quinjet - given the way she wants to modify the dual engine to a quintet more suitable for dual use as transportation and light combat. It’s a hell of an idea. 

He sets aside his paperwork and closes his newer proposal for the Avengers Initiative. 

This young lady has got his attention. And will receive a very flattering, highly regarded letter of recommendation for her application. 

The world and the universe is ever changing. 

Nick Fury knows a great ally to have on his side when he sees one. Because he keeps both eyes open.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're here from an author alert and worried I've abandoned Still I Fall, I'm sorry but I haven't. 
> 
> If you're here from an author alert and are thankful it's another Marvel fic after so long, I'm sorry but this is all I got before I return to Still I Fall. 
> 
> If you want to cry and scream about Nick Fury Dad-venger O.P. in the comments with me, please do.


End file.
